mst3kfandomcom-20200215-history
MST3K 706 - Laserblast
The Movie Synopsis Alien creatures kill a mutated alien creature in the California desert. Its remains, and the high-tech laser gun and power source accidentally left behind, are found by an ostracized teenager. However, the power source causes the teenager to mutate, too, and he goes on a murderous rampage. Eventually, the first aliens return to kill him as well, and then forget to take the gun again. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077834/plotsummary Information * Roddy McDowall's name is misspelled in the ending credits as "Roddy McDowell". * This is the only film wherein Eddie Deezen plays a bully. In every other film he plays a (usually picked-on) nerdy character. * Alien conversation from the movie is used in the opening of "A Dios Alma Perdida" by Static-X. * Billy Duncan, armed with the laser cannon, blows up a Star Wars billboard late in the film. * The "East Coast, Southern California" town depicted in the final scene is actually a left over 1920's Chicago set. Note the "S.M.C. Cartage Co." building in the background after Billy gets killed. The infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre took place in the S.M.C. Cartage Company garage, Chicago 1929. * The first film to feature the stop-motion animation of Dave Allen, which was the only praise (among the make-up) by most critics. * The only film Michael Rae has ever directed. * This was the debut film for composers Richard Band and Joel Goldsmith (son of Jerry Goldsmith). * Makeup artist Steve Neill plays the alien who is killed in the opening scene. * Keenan Wynn's scenes were shot in one day. * An early promotional article on the film misspelled the title "Laser Blast", whereas the films official title is spelled as one word. * Steve Neill, who was makeup artist on the film, also designed and created the alien ray gun and the pendant. * The music from this was lifted and used in Season 1's Robot Holocaust. * On a rather grim note, both actors who played the lead characters are deceased: Kim Milford (Billy) died of heart failure following open-heart surgery in 1988; Cheryl Smith (Cathy) passed away in 2002 from hepatitis and liver failure due to long-term heroin use. The Episode Host Segments Prologue: Against Mike's will, Crow and Tom present the subtile nuances of The Thunderdome Joke. Segment One: Dr. F’s funding has been cut (he had funding?), so he disconnects the Umbilicus, setting the SOL loose. He's moving out of Deep 13 with help from Pearl. Gypsy and Tom manage to fix the ship so they have thrusters, but no control. They drift out of Earth's orbit and begin to head into deep space. Segment Two: The SOL is visited by Monad, an annoying robot relative of Nomad. He is taunted and confused by the SOL crew, and so Mike is able to boot Monad out of the airlock with no problem. Segment Three: The SOL hits a field of star babies - and one of them needs a diaper change. Mike plays Ground Control ala Apollo 13 as Servo and Crow go out into space to get the little...er, big one taken care of. Segment Four: With the SOL heading toward a black hole, Mike takes charge the only way he can: he becomes Captain Kathryn Janeway. It works, but it ends in a very weird manner. Segment Five: The SOL reaches the edge of the universe and the crew transform themselves into noncorporeal beings of pure energy or something, and it's fun. In Deep 13, Dr. F becomes unstuck in time, has a revelation and is reborn in a sequence that pays tribute to the final sequence in 2001, right down to the broken goblet. Pearl rejoices at her second chance to raise him right, but Dr. F's only response? "Oh, poopie." Stinger: The freaky hippie dude says, "Faaar out!" Other Notes Guest Stars *''Monad (voice): Jim Mallon *''Old Dr. Forrester: Jack Beaulieu Miscellanea *Trace Beaulieu's final appearance as Dr. Clayton Forrester and Crow T. Robot. * The Final Episode of the Comedy Central era. At the time this episode was made, no one knew if the show would be picked up by any other network, so it was designed to be the final episode of the series if necessary. * The final host segment was a tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey. * At the beginning, Dr. Forrester said that Leonard Maltin gave the movie 2 1/2 stars. During the movie's closing credits, Mike and the 'bots looked up other movies in his book that had worse ratings than Laserblast. Marathon Man, Hannah And Her Sisters, and ''Unforgiven'''' were among those who had a worse or an equal rating.'' * The top label on the giant "Worst Movie Ever Made" VHS tape is upside down. * Joel Hodgson’s and Jef Maynard’s “set design” credits end with this episode. Obscure References *''"I saw a Wolman drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's."'' A reference to the song "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon. *''"Norelco's secret plan for world domination! Even its name spells 'Merry Christmas'!"'' A reference to a Christmas-themed commercial for Norelco electric shavers, in which Santa was shown flying on an electric razor while the letters in "NORELCO" started disappearing to form "NOEL". *''"We wish to welcome you to Denver's airport!"'' In 1995, Denver's original airport Stapleton International, was destroyed and replaced with the current Denver International Airport just six miles away. Around the time this episode aired, it was still being constructed and was already 2 billion dollars over budget. There wasn't any real clear reason why the original airport was replaced; which led to bizarre conspiracy theories. *''"Edward CD-Player-Hands."'' A play on Tim Burton's strange 1990 sci-fi film Edward Scissorhands. *''"Christina's World 3001."'' A reference to the painting by Andrew Wyeth. *''"Ojai. Crap. I'm still in Ojai."'' A play on Capt. Williard's line from Apocalypse Now: "Saigon. Shit. I'm still in Saigon." Ojai is a (notoriously uneventful) town in southern California. *''"I'm the friendly stranger in the black sedan!"'' Servo is singing an excerpt from 'Vehicle' by The Ides of March. *''He woke up Ram Dass!'' Ram Dass, or Baba Ram Dass, is a spiritual teacher who bears a resemblance to the white haired old man. *''"Hush Hush" "Sweet Charlotte!"'' Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte was a thriller 1964 American thriller film directed and produced by Robert Aldrich, and starring Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, and Agnes Moorehead. It was nomniated for seven Oscars. *''"I know, I"ll seek refuge in 20 explosive hits by 20 explosive stars!"'' A reference to a 1973 K-Tel compilation. (Here's the commercial, so you can see just how bitchin' it truly was.) *''"Are you ready for some football?"'' A reference to Hank Williams Jr., who sang the theme to Monday Night Football for many seasons (the deputy resembles him, somewhat.) *''"You ever notice how Haile Selassie is God?"'' Haile Selassie was the last emperor of Ethiopia, and is believed to have been Christ incarnate by Rastafarians. *''"'Sister Mary Elephant' is funny!"'' "Sister Mary Elephant" was a comedy routine by Cheech and Chong. *''"Roxy!'"'' Said in a whiny, nasally voice as the film looks out over an arid desert locale, this is a callback to Eegah. *''"Suddenly I long for a Hal Needham film..."'' Hal Needham was the director of Smokey & The Bandit, Hooper, and Cannonball Run. *''"Anyway, all my rowdy friends are coming over tonight."'' Sort of an offshoot of the "Are you ready for some football?" running joke, this references the song "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight", a song also by Hank Williams Jr (and the song that the "Are You Ready for Some Football?" MNF theme was based on.) *''"I'm Max Keller."'' From another movie (well, series of movies, actually) that shouldn't have made it out of the '70s: Master Ninja I and Master Ninja II. *''"Laaaaady! When you're with me I'm smiiiiiling!"'' Servo starts to croon Lady from the band Styx. *''"Wow, Albert Belle did cork his bat!"'' Surly former professional baseball player Albert Belle received a seven-game suspension in 1994 for using a corked bat while playing for the Cleveland Indians. *''"Get your motor running ... head out on the highway..." First verse of the Steppenwolf song "Born To Be Wild". *"Did they need to go to Angkor Wat just to have a picnic?"'' Angkor Wat is a religious temple monument in Cambodia and is considered to be the largest in the world. *''"When you crank Don't Fear the Reaper..."'' Don't Fear the Reaper is a song by Blue Oyster Cult. It's not really the kind of song you crank. *''"And a dog named Boo..."'' Me and You and a Dog Named Boo was the debut single for Lobo , hitting #5 on the Billboard chart in 1971. *''"Meanwhile on 'Quark'....Remember 'Quark'?"'' Quark was a late 70's sci-fi sitcom featuring a space captain who commandeered a garbage ship collecting waste in space. Servo asking if Mike remembers Quark reflects the series' very short run; a paltry seven episodes and one pilot. *''"Another Buddhist monk..."'' In 1963, as a protest during the Buddhist Crisis in Vietnam, a Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc immolated himself with gasoline on a street in Saigon near the Presidential palace. AP journalist Malcolm Browne took a now-famous photo of the event. Other acts of self-immolation would follow. *''"It's Rover from 'The Prisoner'!"'' On the cult classic 1960s British TV series The Prisoner, Rover was an orb-like entity that hunted and intercepted people who tried to escape from the Village. *''"I am the lizard king!"'' A line from a song by the 1960s pop group The Doors . *''"This movie packs the unflinching humor of a Dik Browne panel."'' A reference to the late cartoonist behind such comic strips as "Hi and Lois " and "Hagar the Horrible " (which are generally considered to be banal and unfunny). *''"Oh, it's a Calvin Klein ad."'' A reference to an extremely controversial (and ultimately banned) television ad campaign for Calvin Klein that featured an offscreen voice asking young-looking people to take off their clothes, in what seemed like an audition for a porno movie. More information about the campaign at this link , but do be warned that some may find these images disturbing. *''"Englebert Humperdinck on a personal journey."'' Englebert Humperdinck is a British soft-pop singer who rose to fame in the 1960s & 1970s *''"If I built a fortress around your heart..."'' A quote from the Sting song "Fortress Around Your Heart". *''"Ecuadorian bat boy found alive in cave!"'' A reference to an infamous Weekly World News headline. * "Aaaalll righty then!" Appears to be a case of Crow mixing up his Jim Carrey references. That was the catchphrase of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Ventura:_Pet_Detective Ace Ventura], but with his green face Billy instead calls to mind Carrey as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_%28film%29 The Mask]. *''"Something touched me deep inside the day Eddie Deezen died."'' Mike sings a portion of Don McLean's song American Pie, substituting Eddie Deezen's name for the lyric: "The day the music died". *''"It's raining porn... Hallelujah."'' Servo references It's Raining Men by The Weather Girls. Callbacks *''"Robert Ginty was a better kisser!"'' Most likely a reference to earlier episode Warrior of the Lost World, which starred Ginty. At the end, Joel and the bots made fun of his sloppy kiss with the female lead. *"Leave the Bronx..." Reference to Escape 2000. *''"Eegah..."'' Reference to Eegah Memorable Quotes : credits display: "Laserblast". : Crow: Terrible name for laser eye surgery… scares away the customers. : mutated man tries to hide from a spaceship, with a laser cannon attached to his arm. : Servo Elmer Fudd: I'm hunting spacecwaft...hehehehehehe. : . . . : closeup of the man reveals his gaunt complexion and the disc-shaped apparatus on top of the laser cannon on his arm. : Mike: Edward CDplayerhands. : a scene with the aliens, followed by an unrelated scene with Billy's mother leaving for Acapulco, the film fades to another seemingly unrelated shot of a van driving along the road. : Mike: Well, now on to movie three! : where we are introduced to our "hero" Billy getting out of bed wearing nothing but yellow gym shorts. : Crow Billy: Augh! Get em off me! get em off me!! Oh wait...it's just my sheets! : Servo: Somehow his "mustardy" shorts don't help. : and Froggy openly mock Billy at the gas station. : Chuck: Whaddya say Froggy? Think our boy Billy is up for a little race? : Froggy: Billy!? Hell, he NEVER races!! : Billy: Who the Hell told you that!? I'll show you a race! : Crow Billy: Just let me get into my dad's electric supply van! : Servo: Inverted world where the spazzes make fun of the "cool guys." : back to Chuck and Froggy, Mike riffs on who they resemble. : Mike: Steven Stills and Bill Gates!! : minutes into the movie, and nothing important has happened. Billy is hanging around a gas station. : Servo: So, let's recap the movie so far: somebody went to Acapulco, and somebody almost bought gas. : after finding a laser cannon in the desert, Billy begins hopping around oddly and pretending to blow stuff up. : Billy: Pow! Pa-pow! : Servo: After all that, it's "pa-pa-pow". : Mike: Once you're over the age of 11, you should not say "pow". : continues to prance about the desert with the laser cannon on his arm, moving rather daintily. : Servo: I think he's doing Frampton Comes Alive. : Mike: ...So, it's a thing that makes you waltz. : Crow: Won't he be surprised to learn that it doesn't go "pow" but "fffwissshh"! : gleefully blasts away at shrubs and sand with said cannon. : Mike Billy: Yeah... I think you are gonna detail my van for seventy-five dollars! : sits by Billy's van, waiting for Billy to arrive. : Mike: ...So we're watching someone waiting for someone. : Servo: There's a point where it stops being a movie! : Kathy: Gee, Billy...if only you were more ordinary. : Mike: More ordinary? Man, he'd have to work at that. : Kathy: We were supposed to go to Susan's birthday party. We're due there by three! : Billy: I don't wanna go to no party. : Crow Billy: C'mon! I'm cooking a pizza on the engine block! : cake is brought out at the pool party, causing an overexcited reaction from the partygoers : Crow: Teens love their cake pool party! : a pool party, Chuck is serving hot dogs to a good-looking girl in a bikini. : Chuck: Whoa, mama. Wouldn't Chuck like to give you his red hot frank. : Girl: From what I hear, Chucky, it ain't so hot. : Crow Chuck: She undercut the subtle nuance of my wiener joke! : . . . : pushes the girl into the pool. : Mike Chuck: There! I think I've taught you not to rebuff my wiener innuendo! : : Crow: 'So no one wants to eat cake, and he can't find Cathy. Now the movie is really starting to find its purpose! : ''where Billy fights with both Chuck and Froggy; Mike goes back to Froggy's "resemblance" to Bill Gates. : '''Mike: The Microsoft meeting goes horribly wrong! : and girlfriend Kathy's hands are shown roving over each other's exposed skin in an intimate moment between the two while Mike and the 'bots express their repulsion. : Crow: This movie means two things to me: sheet cake and back fat! : hippie driver who offers Billy a ride starts rambling about random occurrences. : Hippie: Yeah, there I was, 30,000 feet straight up! Field full of frozen yo-yos and the string broke. I didn't falter! Just kept on going man! I knew Nirvana was straight around the corner. I turned the corner and ran smack into Betty Crocker! She was running across the sky yelling "You never outgrow your need for milk!" : Servo: I miss Eddie Deezen... : Hippie: I looked at her, and said, "Baby! You're something else!" : Servo: Cousin of yours Mike? : Billy kills the hippie driver and steals the van for no reason, Mike can't help but wonder about Leonard Maltin's rating he gave this movie. : Mike: So I wonder what the "flaw" was that prevented Leonard Maltin from giving this the full three stars? : [As the ending credits roll, Mike leafs through a copy of Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide''.]'' : Mike: OK, let's look in Maltin's book, uh he gave this two-and-a-half stars... ooh, My Favorite Year barely edges it out with three stars. : Crow: Huh. : Servo: Look here, Hannah and her Sisters is superior only by one star. : Mike: Oh wow. : Crow: the film Oh great, now a tire fire starts just off camera! : coughs. Mike turns a page. : Mike: OK. Umm, ah, look, hey—Leonard Maltin gave the same two-and-a-half stars to My Dinner With Andre. : Crow: Uhh— : Servo: disgusted Name of the Rose... this is a better film than Name of the Rose! It only got two stars! : Crow: Being There, two stars. : Mike: Uh, Lucas Tanner the movie was directed by Richard Donner... I just thought I'd point that out. : Servo: Oh. Good. : Mike: Lemme see here... : Crow: the credits Y'mean, y'mean to tell me that Ron Masak and Eddie Deezen get billing over Roddy McDowall? : Servo: Look Mike, Birdman of Alcatraz, three stars. Marginally better than Laserblast. : Crow: reading the credits They spelled Roddy McDowall's name wrong... : Servo: in What else you got? : Mike: Oh, here we go, Full Metal Jacket, three stars. : Crow: Hm? : Servo: Shame, isn't it. : Mike: Oh, hey, Seven Samurai, two stars. : Crow: incredulous What?! : Mike: I'm kidding. : Crow: Oh. : Servo: I hope so. : Mike: According to this, A Fish Called Wanda was as good a film as Laserblast. : Crow: dismissive D'oh... : Servo: Broadcast News, Witness, three stars—''barely'' superior to Laserblast. : Mike: Mm-hm. : Crow: Same for Diner. : Mike: Yeah, hm. Oh, here we go—this was a better movie than Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. : Crow: Well, that's possible... : Servo: And the same caliber as Last Crusade—two-and-a-half stars. : Mike: Oh. And, uh, and yet: Blame It On the Bellboy... four stars. : Servo: unbelieving Where? : Crow: incredulous What? : Mike: No, I'm kidding. : Servo: Oh, you... You... jeez... : Mike: So, Kim Milford's greasy, pop-eyed performance was every bit as good as F. Murray Abraham's tortured performance as Salieri in Amadeus. : Crow: According to Leonard Maltin, yes, Mike. : Servo: Bagdad Café, brilliant subtle comedy—no better than Laserblast. : Mike: Here's where it gets hard—''Harry and the Hendersons'' is every bit as good as Laserblast. : Crow: Carson McCullers' classic The Heart is a Lonely Hunter—no better than Laserblast. : notices Mike is hiding something and tries to read it. : Mike: reluctant No, no— : Servo: Uhp, John Schlesinger's Oscar-winning thriller Marathon Man—on par with Laserblast, two-and-a-half stars. : Mike: Right, so Laurence Olivier's chilling performance as Szell, the White Angel, no better than the butt-faced sheriff in Laserblast. : Crow: Again, according to Leonard Maltin, yes, Mike. : Mike: OK, ah— : Servo: Ah, look here, look here, Outlaw Josey Wales AND Unforgiven! Oscar-winner. Quintessential Westerns, Eastwood at his finest. However, I think you know where we're headed with this, Mike. : Mike: Uh, yeah... : Servo, Mike: Same as Laserblast— : Servo: Two-and-a-half stars. : Mike: Oh, here we go, here's a couple more. Sophie's Choice— : Servo: Uh huh. : Mike: Uh... here's one, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory— : Servo: No! : Mike: The Great Santini— : Servo: Oh, I can't believe that! : Mike: All two-and-a-half stars. : Servo: Two-and-a-half stars. : Mike: The same quality. : Crow: Also known as "Ace", by the way. : Mike: Yes, "Ace". : Servo: they leave Peers to Laserblast. Video Release * Commercially released on DVD by Shout Factory in October 2008 as part of The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: 20th Anniversary ''box sex, a 4-DVD set with ''Werewolf, Future War, and First Spaceship on Venus. * Category:MST3K Episodes Category:Season 7 Category:70s Movie Category:Movies that got good reception Category:Star Trek spoofs Category:PG-rated movies Category:Directed by Trace Beaulieu